Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Disappointment for a huge fan!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Blistering performances.

I found this silent epic in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I read that director Erich von Stroheim (Foolish Wives) originally created a film that lasted 9 and a half hours, but when it premiered in New York, MGM cut it down to a "commercial" length, of just over 2 hours. What was lost is regarded as the greatest tragedy in motion picture history, and the missing footage has been called the "Holy Grail" of cinema, but I found a reconstructed 4-hour version, that tells the full story narrative the director originally intended. Basically in Placer County, California, John McTeague (Gibson Gowland) works as a miner at the Big Dipper Gold Mine. When travelling dentist Dr. "Painless" Potter (Erich von Ritzau) visits the town, McTeague's mother (Tempe Pigott) begs Potter to take her son on as an apprentice. Potter agrees, and eventually McTeague becomes a practising dentist, with his own office on Polk Street in San Francisco. Marcus Schouler (Jean Hersholt) brings his cousin and intended fiancée Trina Sieppe (Zasu Pitts) into McTeague's dental office, Schouler and McTeague are friends and McTeague gladly agrees to examine her. As they wait for an opening, Trina buys a lottery ticket, McTeague becomes enamored with Trina and asks Schouler for permission to court her, seeing his conviction, Schouler agrees. After being with each other for some time, Trina eventually agrees to marry McTeague, shortly after Trina finds that her lottery ticket is a winner, she receives $5,0000 ($71,000 by today). Schouler is bitter and claims that the money should have been his, his bitterness causes a rift between him and McTeague, after the wedding the newlyweds continue to live in their small apartment, but Trina refuses to spend her winnings. Schouler leaves the city to become a cattle rancher, but before leaving he secretly reports his former friend McTeague for practicing dentistry without a license, McTeague is ordered to shut down his practice or go to jail. Trina has saved over $200 in addition to the original $5,000 from the lottery ticket, but she is unwilling to spend the money, the couple are forced to sell their possessions when money becomes increasingly scarce. McTeague finally snaps and bites Trina's fingers in a fit of rage, he goes fishing to earn money, and takes Trina's savings (now totaling $450), Trina's bitten finger becomes infected and is amputated. To make money, Trina becomes a janitor at a children's school, she withdraws the $5,000 from the bank to keep it close to her, spreading it on her bed and sleeping on it. McTeague returns and has spent the savings he took, he asks Trina for more money, after she refuses he confronts her the following day at the school, but she still refuses, after a heated argument McTeague beats Trina to death and steals the $5,000. McTeague is now an outlaw, he returns to Placer County and teams up with prospector Cribbens (James F. Fulton), heading towards Death Valley, they plan to become millionaires after finding a large quantity of quartz (a valuable element). Before they can begin mining, McTeague senses danger and takes a horse, the remaining money and the water jug, several marshals pursue him, with Schouler accompanying them, he is desperate to catch McTeague personally and rides into Death Valley alone. The severe heat slows McTeague down, Schouler's progress is also waning when he spots McTeague and moves in to arrest him. After a confrontation, Schouler fires a gun into the water container, the water spills onto the desert floor, the pair fight one last time, McTeague is victor, but Schouler has handcuffed himself to him. It ends with McTeague left in the desert and the harsh heat with no horse and no water, handcuffed to a corpse, and unable to reach the remaining money. Also starring Chester Conklin as "Popper" Sieppe and Sylvia Ashton as "Mommer" Sieppe. Director Stroheim is quoted as saying "No matter if I could talk to you three weeks steadily could I possibly describe even to a small degree the heartache I suffered through the mutilation of my sincere work". The version I watched was longer, using still images of the original full uncut version, that took 2 years to make, all that is missing are fairly minor scenes, including a subplot depicting the lives of elderly couple Charles W. Grannis (Frank Hayes) and Miss Anastasia Baker (Fanny Midgley). It is an interesting story, the female lead character is obsessive, and the lead male character turns from simple unqualified dentist into a mad violent alcoholic and murderer, greed is ultimately what leads to their tragic fates, if you can find this reconstructed version, then it is a worthwhile classic silent drama. Very good!

I didn't think this movie was that good. The words that were written for when the characters "spoke" were in a different language (I believe it was Italian?) and there were plenty of times when the characters spoke so it was very distracting. It made me uninterested to watch it because it was in a different language. And I'm not sure if it was because I watched to film online or if it's just because it was an old movie but the music was terrible. It was very distracting to listen to something that was had a bunch of static. The story line was good I guess but like I said, it was in different language so I wasn't able to fully understand what was happening. I wouldn't recommend this movie.

The sudden fortune won from a lottery fans such destructive greed that it ruins the lives of the three people involved.Stroheim shot more than 85 hours of footage and obsessed over accuracy during the filming. Two months were spent shooting in Death Valley and many of the cast and crew became ill.During the making of Greed, the production company merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, putting Irving Thalberg in charge of the production. Thalberg had fired Stroheim a few years earlier at Universal Pictures. Originally almost eight hours long, Greed was edited against Stroheim's wishes to about two-and-a-half hours. Only twelve people saw the full-length 42-reel version, now lost; some of them called it the greatest film ever made.In the early 1950s Greed's reputation began to grow and it appeared on several lists of the greatest films ever made. In 1952 at the Festival Mondial du Film et des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Greed was named the fifth greatest film ever made, with such directors as Luchino Visconti, Orson Welles and Billy Wilder voting for it.There are a great many versions floating around. You will not be able to find the ridiculously long version, but Turner has put together the next best thing, and it seems pretty simple to find a medium-length copy. There are also some out there that look awful and sound worse. Maybe the film is in the public domain or maybe these are bootlegs. i am not sure. But do not watch these copies if you can help it. The least they could have done was put a new soundtrack over the top, but instead they left some awful din.

In early 1900s California, brash bird-loving Gibson Gowland (John "Mac" McTeague) wants a better life than his California mining family. After becoming a San Francisco dentist, Mr. Gowland falls in love with penny-pinching patient ZaSu Pitts (as Trina Sieppe), who had been dating her cousin and Mr. Gowland's only friend, Jean Hersholt (as Marcus "Marc" Schouler). Gowland marries the unusually thick-wigged Ms. Pitts, and Mr. Hersholt puts his animosity on the back burner. Temporarily. Eventually, Gowland, his wife, and friend are all consumed by "Greed".Money changes everything.Erich von Stroheim was likely impressed with Barry O'Neil's 1916 "Life's Whirlpool" (a "lost" film with surviving stills showing "Greed" imagery) and read Frank Norris' source novel "McTeague" (1899). Mr. von Stroheim intended to film the entire book, which resulted in a marathon movie, running over nine hours; this is the "mutilated masterpiece" film buffs drool over, but everyone including von Stroheim knew it was too long. Probably, the real loss occurred when MGM further cut the version finalized by Rex Ingram, with von Stroheim's blessing.The root of all evil.The 1999 reconstructed version, by Rick Schmidlin for "Turner Classic Movies" (TCM), is excellent. It re-creates, using hundreds of film stills, the nine-hour version. At four hours, it's manageable in one sitting; however, the unenlightened may find it tedious. Sometimes the color is garish, and the glorious "full color" photographs of "Old Grannis" and "Miss Baker" seems anachronistic. After only ten minutes, it's obvious that MGM cut scenes of great artistic worth, presumably from the version prepared by Mr. Ingram. Indeed, "Greed" was a butchered film.******** Greed (12/4/24) Erich von Stroheim ~ Gibson Gowland, ZaSu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Dale Fuller